“Why are we stopping here?” I asked Jack.
He shrugged, without looking up from his penny dreadful. “Probably picking up some passengers. Some chose to board in remote regions to avoid the crowded stations for personal reasons. More discreet that way.”
There was a small hut on the platform, as I could discern after pressing my cheek to the frozen windowpane to melt the frost. A pavilion with a flat roof on which the snow mounded like sugar in a sugar bowl, and three wooden walls. Inside it were two figures, bundled up against the cold in what looked like fur cloaks made of the skins of the entire contents of Noah’s ark — no two pelts were alike. The whole gave an impression of a moving cat-and-dog fight as they started to shamble slowly toward the train, dragging behind them two fairly large sea chests.
They came through the doors of our carriage a moment later, and even though the carriage was almost empty, took a compartment across the aisle from us. I studied their chests, covered in intricate carvings of whales and fishes and dragons, and secured by wide leather straps. The two chests occupied most of the floor of the compartment, and the passengers had to carefully arrange their feet shod in heavy boots with fur spats. I couldn’t help but feel they were overdressed for the weather, even if it was frigid outside.
It took the new arrivals a while to unburden themselves from their fur hats, fur gloves, fur everything. Their cloaks were lined with gold-colored silk, an unexpected flash of refinement.
I noticed Jack was watching them too: his pose, while seemingly nonchalant, was wound with hidden tension — his right hand dangled between his knees, still holding the booklet, but his left was thrust into the pocket of his coat. His feet rested flatly on the floor, his leg muscles tightening under the fabric of his trousers.
The strangers were not English, as I had feared, but Chinese — there was no mistaking their facial features and soft voices that spoke in what I recognized as Cantonese. Yet, their hair was not braided into a long pigtail, but hung loosely around their faces, looking as if it had not been cut in some years. The clothing they wore under their furs was made of silk, but tattered and dirty, and I could not decide if they were Han robes. I was certain they were not Manchu.
One of them realized that I was staring. “Kuan Yu,” he introduced himself and bowed, withdrawing his hands into sleeves sporting an unintentional fringe.
“Poruchik Menshov,” I said brightly in English. “Any relation to Admiral Kuan Tien Pei?”
The man laughed then, showing small white teeth. “Not that I know of, but I do suspect the admiral honors Kuan Ti, the god of war, as do I.”
Jack listened to this exchange, visibly relaxing. It occurred to me that he did not lower his guard when he realized our new neighbors were Chinese, but only at the mention of some pagan deity I was sure Chiang Tse mentioned to me at some point. “You’re not a Christian then?” Jack interjected.
Our interlocutor and his companion traded a quick look. “No, of course not,” the one who had remained quiet so far said in fairly good English.
“You have long hair instead of shaved temples and queue,” Jack said.
“My father died,” said Kuan Yu.
“Mine too,” added his companion. “We are not Christian. You’re Christian, you’re an Englishman.”
Jack nodded.
“Funny,” said the second man. “There were other English at the station with us, and now I don’t know where they went.”
“There were?” Jack and I said in one voice.
“Yes,” the man said. “My name is Liu Zhi.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jack said, but already his gaze drifted toward the doors of the carriage.
We did not have to wait long — the door opened, and eight men, dressed in civilian clothing, tweed and fur collared-cloaks, filed in. In the narrow corridor of the couchette carriage, their numbers would be of no advantage, I thought, even if they noticed us. To prevent such recognition, I wrapped my shoulders in my pelisse and acted as if I were asleep sitting up, my head resting against the windowpane. Jack’s gray eyes flicked toward me, and he shot me a quick smile as he unrolled his Dick Turpin booklet.
The Englishmen looked at all the passengers as they passed; I could not see through the walls of the compartments, of course, but I could see their slow progress down the corridor, their heads swinging to the right and then left. I peeked out of the compartment, and wished we had chosen the sleeping carriage with closing doors; it was Jack who objected to those, on account of avoiding potential traps.
The first of the Englishmen reached us. I saw the back of his head as it swiveled to look at the Chinese. He had tiny black hairs on the back of his neck, fine as cat fur, bristling over the white scarf he wore over the ruddy pelt of his fur collar. When he turned toward us, my gaze drifted toward the letter in my lap. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Jack sink lower in his seat, slouching forward and hunching over.
The man did not move on; he remained where he was, staring at us. When the silence became uncomfortable and I looked up, reluctantly meeting the stare of his pale watery eyes. “May I help you, sir?” I said in my most masculine voice.
He smiled slowly and gave a half-turn half-nod to his accomplices. While his back was turned, Jack sprung. He lacked grace, but he made up this shortcoming in raw power. He barreled into the man and sent him stumbling backward, into the arms of his colleagues.
Someone in the front end of the carriage screamed, and there was a shuffling of steps as passengers fled the carriage. Soon, it would be just the two of us, eight Englishmen, and nowhere to run. Jack, however, was undeterred by the circumstance. He strained like a man trying to single-handedly move a heavy piano, pushing the knot of Englishmen back the way they had come in.
A shot rang out. I smelled smoke, and the acrid scent of burning sulfur and paper. I unsheathed my dead uncle’s saber and made my way into the narrow corridor.
I wanted to help Jack, but there was no getting around him to reach the struggling Englishmen. I was so intent on finding a way to circumvent him that I did not immediately notice both of the Chinese gentlemen had arisen as well, their fur cloaks donned anew.
“Stand aside,” one of them shouted. I obeyed on instinct, falling into one of the empty couchette compartments as they pushed past me. I expected them to be stopped by the obstacle of Jack as I had, but instead — I do not quite know how to describe it, since my eyes refused to believe the sight — they leapt into the air and sailed with the slow grace of birds riding air currents, over Jack and the Englishmen he was struggling with, and landed softly on the far side of Nightingale’s agents.
Confused shouting and thrashing of limbs filled the end of the corridor, and the fur of the Chinamen’s cloaks became quite animated — I saw it rise above the commotion flapping like mangy wings.
I glimpsed a sudden flail of an arm and the piercing shine of something metallic and sharp. Even Jack stopped pushing and his Englishmen scrambled to turn around. All I could see was a blur of motion and shadow. One of the Chinese gentlemen (I think it was Kuan Yu) jumped nearly to the rail car’s ceiling, and his foot, shod in a surprisingly refined-looking satin slipper, connected with the back of the head of one of the Englishmen, sending him spinning and tumbling into the clump of his countrymen, already exceedingly cramped by Jack’s effort at our end.
Even though it was difficult to make out who was hitting whom and with what, the Chinese gentlemen and their disturbing fur cloaks seemed to be gaining an upper hand. The English were defending themselves only half-heartedly, squeezed as they were between the Chinese and Jack who, by then, had stopped pushing and only administered an occasional and judicious slap or poke, keeping the agents tightly contained. He would make a good shepherd dog, I thought, as I managed to wedge in next to him and poke and prod the men with my now-sheathed saber. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but I wanted a closer look at the strange balletic species of fisticuffs our new friends were employing, and I enjoyed feeling useful.